The present invention relates to an air-conditioning controller system, and more particularly to an air-conditioning controlling system suitable for a semiconductor manufacturing factory.
In the factory in which semiconductor products such as memories and LSIs are manufactured, in order to improve the quality of the products, the products are manufactured within a clean room shielded from the outside environment. A high-performance filter is used in the clean room to remove floating dust in the air and the air-conditioning system realizes a suitable environment in temperature and humidity for manufacturing of the products.
When the clean room is air-conditioned, a large amount of electric power is required for the air-conditioning and generation of air stream. In order to save energy in the air-conditioning of the clean room, JP-A-10-292943 discloses that a condition of the outside air is measured to calculate a temperature of a cooling liquid required for operation of an outside air-conditioning unit and an inside air-conditioning unit on the basis of the measured result so that a refrigerator is operated at the calculated temperature. Further, in order to reduce the cost of the clean room facilities and save energy thereof, JP-A-6-159751 discloses that an outlet for blowing an air stream covering an apparatus is disposed opposite to the apparatus and inlets for sucking the air are disposed around the apparatus.
In the air-conditioning system in a semiconductor manufacturing factory, two kinds of air-conditioning loads including a cooling load varied depending on an amount of semiconductors to be manufactured and a cooling load varied depending on a condition of the outside air are generated. Accordingly, only when the condition of the outside air is measured to control the air-conditioning or only when the air-conditioning is controlled in accordance with the amount of semiconductors to be manufactured, only one load is considered and accordingly the estimation of the cooling loads is not sufficient.
In the above JP-A-10-292943, since the air-conditioning is controlled in accordance with the condition of the outside air, the energy can be saved to some extent but some equipment cannot be turned on and off frequently and it is insufficient to predict operation of such equipment. Further, in JP-A-6-159751, the stream of air in the clean room is improved but it is not considered that the condition of the outside air is predicted to save energy. In addition, both of the above publications do not consider that electric energy is utilized effectively to reduce the discrepancy between a power generation plan of a power generation company and an amount of actually used electric power.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to save energy in an air-conditioning system used in a factory in which a large amount of energy is used such as, for example, a semiconductor manufacturing factory. Further, it is an object of the present invention to save energy in an energy supply company that supplies energy to such a factory.
In order to achieve the above objects, according to the present invention, in an air-conditioning controlling system for providing a controlling method of an air-conditioning equipment including a number of control components to a factory or company provided with the air conditioning equipment from an operation management company, air-conditioning thermal loads in the factory or company are classified into loads depending on an outside-air condition and loads based on a product plan and the operation management company provides the method of controlling the components constituting the air-conditioning equipment with the loads depending on the outside-air condition on the basis of a forecasted outside-air condition on that day calculated from past outside-air condition records on and before the previous data at least and of controlling the components constituting the air-conditioning equipment with the loads based on the product plan in substantially the same condition as on the previous day, to the factory or company.
Further, it is preferable that the operation management company includes a past outside-air condition record database in which past records of outside-air conditions on and before the previous day are stored and an air-conditioning thermal load database and predicts loads depending on outside-air conditions on that day on basis of a forecasted maximum temperature on that day obtained from weather forecast providing means through a network, past outside-air condition record data and load data on and before the previous day.
The operation management company may sequentially corrects a coefficient in a temporal variation term of a forecast equation for outside-air temperature and humidity on the basis of a time change rate of a measured value of an outside-air temperature on that day when a difference between the time change rate of the measured value of the outside-air temperature on that day and a time change rate of a transition value of a forecasted outside-air temperature is larger than a predetermined permissible value.
In order to achieve the above objects, according to another aspect of the present invention, in an air-conditioning controlling system in a semiconductor manufacturing factory connected to an operation management company through a network, the operation management company includes forecast means for forecasting a transition of an outside-air condition on that day, air-conditioning thermal load predicting means for predicting an air-conditioning thermal load, means for analyzing an air-conditioning controlling method, means for collecting and adding amounts of energy used, and a first local network for connecting the above-mentioned means and the semiconductor manufacturing factory includes means for measuring an outside-air condition, customer terminals, means for measuring an amount of energy used, means for measuring temperature and pressure of air-conditioning equipments, a second local network for connecting the measuring means, and air-conditioning equipments for air-conditioning semiconductor manufacturing facilities. A past outside-air condition record database, an air-conditioning equipment characteristic database, a set-temperature-and-humidity-of-air-conditioning-equipment database and an air-conditioning thermal load database are connected to any of the first or second local network. Weather forecast providing means is connected to the first local network through the internet or a public network. Results measured by the outside-air condition measuring means are stored in the past outside-air condition record database. The outside-air condition transition forecasting means forecasts a transition in future of an outside-air condition on the basis of information stored in the past outside-air condition record database and information provided by the weather forecast providing means. Information of thermal loads generated in the semiconductor manufacturing facilities is stored in the air-conditioning thermal load database. The air-conditioning thermal load predicting means predicts a thermal load in future in the semiconductor manufacturing factory on the basis of information acquired from the outside-air condition transition forecasting means and the air-conditioning thermal load database through the first local network. Set values of temperature and humidity of the air-conditioning equipments are stored in the set-temperature-and-humidity-of-air-conditioning-equipment database. The air-conditioning controlling method analyzing means analyzes the controlling method of the air-conditioning equipments on the basis of information acquired from the air-conditioning thermal load predicting means, the air-conditioning equipment characteristic database and the set-temperature-and-humidity-of-air-conditioning-equipment database. The customer terminals display at least one of information acquired from the outside-air, condition transition forecasting means, the air-conditioning thermal load predicting means and the air-conditioning controlling method analyzing means through the internet or the public network. The outside-air condition measuring means, the past outside-air condition record database, the weather forecast providing means, the outside-air condition transition forecasting means, the air-conditioning thermal load database, the air-conditioning thermal load predicting means, the air-conditioning equipment characteristic database, the set-temperature-and-humidity-of-air-conditioning-equipment database, the air-conditioning controlling method analyzing means and the terminal units are connected through the internet or the public network.
Further, it is preferable that the semiconductor manufacturing factory includes controlling method storing means for storing an analyzed result of the air-conditioning controlling method analyzing means and controlling means for acquiring information stored in the controlling method storing means and preferably controls the air-conditioning equipment, and the controlling method storing means and the controlling means are connected to the second local network.
Moreover, it is preferable that the semiconductor manufacturing factory includes the past outside-air condition record database, the air-conditioning equipment characteristic database, and the set-temperature-and-humidity-of-air-conditioning-equipment database, and the databases are connected to the second local database. It is preferable that the operation management company is connected to the internet or the public network so that the management company can acquire information stored in the databases.
It is preferable that the semiconductor manufacturing factory includes the means for measuring an amount of energy used in the air-conditioning equipment, and the operation management company includes amount-of-energy-used collection and addition means for collecting and adding a measured result of the amount-of-energy-used measuring means. The amount-of-energy-used measuring means and the amount-of-energy-used collection and addition means are connected through the internet or the public network. An amount of energy used collected and added by the amount-of-energy-used collection and addition means can be displayed in the terminal unit.
When a difference between information forecasted by the outside-air condition transition forecasting means and information measured by the outside-air condition measuring means exceeds a predetermined permissible value, the outside-air condition transition forecasting means preferably corrects a forecasting method. Selectively inputting means capable of changing display contents in the terminal unit may be provided.
The semiconductor manufacturing factory may pay an amount of money obtained by multiplying a difference between an amount of energy used in the semiconductor manufacturing factory, previously obtained before implementation of the air-conditioning control and an amount of energy used upon the air-conditioning control, obtained by the amount-of-energy-used collection and addition means by a charge rate as an operation management charge to the operation management company. The semiconductor manufacturing factory may pay an amount of money corresponding to a value obtained by multiplication of a period that the air-conditioning is implemented, the number of air-conditioning equipments and a predetermined charge rate to the operation management company.